Three Little Words
by Beth6787
Summary: Set early season 7. After another life and death struggle and an early hours wander around Voyager's lower decks, Kathryn is recording her personal log.


Beth6787

March 2018

Three Little Words...

Set early season 7. After another 2am wander around the decks of Voyager, Kathryn is recording her personal log.

Kathryn feels her legs turning to jelly as she slumps down onto the sofa, coffee mug only just making contact in time, with the moulded back support which so handily doubles up as a windowsill. She stares out of the viewport, the stars blurring in front of her eyes. Whether from the speed of travel, the steaming up of the window pane or just sheer exhaustion overwhelming her visual cortex she neither knows or, at this point, cares.

She is vaguely aware that it must be a short time after 3am, it usually takes her an hour or so to complete a circuit of the lower decks. Tonight she wandered through decks thirteen to fifteen. The bowels of the ship and the areas, as Captain, she would not normally be required to visit in person during her duty hours. She is aware that any problems in these sections : housing the waste extraction and recycling plants; ventilation and artificial gravity generators; damaged hardware awaiting recycling or re-designation ...the list goes on...the crewmen working in these areas are the responsibility of Lieutenant Torres and Commander Chakotay. It would be easy for her to forget. The faces, the names, the layout and the feel of the underbelly of their liferaft. The people and machinery that keep them all alive.

She feels momentarily angry. This is her ship, her command and these are her people. More than that, they are her family now. All of them. She knows he means well, as he sees it lifting the burdens of command from her shoulders. Ensuring she only need deal with the big events. The crises that befall them all too often. There is no need for the Captain to deal with the minutiae of the day to day ship's operations. The trivia...the mundane. But he is wrong. Sometimes she craves nothing more than a day on mundanity. So, in the wee small hours of the morning she immerses herself in the routine. The homeostatic mechanisations that are vital to the life of Voyager and all her fragile, organic inhabitants. ...

She sighs and drains the last dregs of lukewarm coffee from the depths of her mug. Now is as good a time as any. The exhaustion engulfs her and overwhelms her mental defences. It is times such as these that her inner voice takes flight and coalesces into the ghostly echoes stored under many layers of encryption deep in the computer core. The molecules in the gel packs shift their conformation and their subatomic particles vibrate in tandem with her soul...

She opens the channel and is vaguely aware of her breath vibrating her vocal chords. She supposes she speaks but has never yet found the courage to replay any of these late night musings. In the cold light of day they may declare a truth that she is not yet ready to face. Yet if she should be lost to them before they reach their final destination she needs something of Kathryn to remain. Something tangible...

" Tonight it was cold. Cold and devoid of any sounds bar those of Voyager herself. Mechanical hums and beeps, rumbles and throbs. Not a footfall nor the echo of a tool in motion anywhere. A ghost ship, devoid of any signs of her crew. Yet all I felt was relief. The latest crisis is over, essential repairs complete. Only a minimal skeleton maintenance crew on duty whilst all those that have worked around the clock to ensure our survival have at last collapsed into an exhausted slumber in whichever quarters their legs would carry them to. On the lower decks, Chakotay tells me, crew bunking arrangements are pretty fluid. Needs must and all that.

Chakotay... how many lives does that man have? He never stopped. Throwing himself into the face of danger above and beyond the call of duty, relentlessly for the last four days. As far as I know, the only time he stopped for air was to enquire after me. Has the Captain eaten? Rested? Was I unharmed? I appreciate his concern for his captain, of course I do. But...sometimes he stifles me. Sometimes...I want to wring his neck. Because it's only dressed up as professional concern. Really he wants to protect Kathryn. The woman he loves.

There : I've said it out loud. And out there, in the corridors and conduits of this titanium plated womb that sustains us and shields us from the ever present death awaiting just micrometers from the external plating, his love for her threatens us all. Compromises his decisions, distracts his focus, detracts from the singular goal of our joint survival. All one hundred and forty two of us. Sometimes, try as he might, he sees only me.

It is my greatest worry and also my greatest comfort. You see, I am a hypocrite because I condemn him for loving me above and beyond all else...yet I feel the same way too. Yes Chakotay, I love you... and that single fact could condemn us all. So I must resist it, whatever the personal cost. I must resist and deny you. And I must delete this log entry and all traces that it ever existed. Just not tonight. For a few brief hours I want to sleep, knowing that Kathryn still exists...deep in the computer core. Just a tiny and transient voice whispering within this bubble of life drifting through the backdrop of eternity. Just for tonight the truth is tangible...I love you..."

Her fingers skim over the touchpad and the encryption begins. Molecules rearrange and electrons flit through the capillary network of Voyager's bio-neural circuitry. For the briefest of instances Voyager appears to glow more brightly against the backdrop of the stars as she acknowledges the secrets of her Captain's heart.

THE END.

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